Cyber Rose
by STRQ
Summary: 10-year-old Ruby Rose goes to visit her friend, Weiss Schnee in Atlas when tragedy strikes; a lone Grimm attacks, leaving Ruby near death. one man takes it upon himself to recreate her, to make her his own, perfect daughter and heir. Rated M for Gore, Violence, and Language
1. Rebuilt

When the girl was brought in, she wasn't immediately identifiable as a human. Chunks of hair were torn off her head, the left side of her face nothing more than a mass of scars, her arms lay at odd angles with bones sticking out everywhere. The same went for her legs. Her innards were hardly contained by her abdomen anymore, more of them were outside her body than were inside. All in all, there was no way she could possibly live, considering she was only about ten years old.

But where the other assembled doctors and surgeons saw a corpse, one Atlesian man saw only the perfect candidate. He dismissed all the other doctors, instead bringing in his own special team. As his team began preparing her, the man grabbed one doctor, asking them what had happened.

"She was found by hunters in the mild southlands. Her friend claims that Grimm surprised them both. It seems that her friend hid, at the cost of the girl here getting mauled." The bitter disapproval was apparent in his voice.

The man said nothing, instead going over to the broken girl. Various men and woman had examined and removed both her arms, as well as her left leg. Looking at the remaining leg, he instructed for it to be removed as well. Thus began a very long and delicate procedure, as the severely damaged internal organs were removed and replaced with new, cutting edge technology.

After almost 14 hours of surgery, Remnant's best doctor finished the last stitch, having replaced the young girl's heart, lungs, liver, kidneys and stomach with robotic parts. Her reproductive system was also removed to make room for computer systems - they knew she wouldn't be needing it. The left side of her face was replaced with metal plating and a robotic eye, connected wirelessly to the computer system in her abdomen, giving her direct access to the entire net of information.

But even after her life was saved, the surgeries continued, the ones to make her the perfect being, halfway between robot and human. Underneath her skin were paper thin sheets of a rare metal; lighter than paper, yet stronger than steel plating. Small components were placed inside her bronchial tubes that would close if sensors in her throat detected water going down the wrong tube, effectively preventing her from drowning.

Her new arms were made of the same metal, as were the legs. Both were filled with various systems to make her stronger and faster than a normal human, as well as filled with several weapons and defence systems. She was officially named Cybernetically Enhanced Organism 010, or CEO010. Unofficially, to the few who knew of her continued existence, they referred to her simply as "Cyber Rose".

* * *

The man looked through the window. His creation had gone through a total of 5 surgeries, totaling more than 105 hours of work. The last stitch had closed almost a day ago, and yet she had yet to awaken. The group he was with had checked and rechecked every system multiple times, saying they were working fine, that the problem probably was rooted in her brain. After several brain scans, they found several issues; specifically they found damage to the prefrontal cortex and limbic system.

"When she wakes, if she does wake at all, it's quite possible she will have no memory of her past. On top of that, there is a high chance she won't know how to process or replicate any emotions, nor will she have any individual personality. She wouldn't be able to speak, or smell, or concentrate, or problem solve. She'd be starting her life - if that is still what you wish to call it - completely anew."

After hearing that, the man had the doctor… taken care of, for telling him such; he would have had it done regardless of what was said, the man was not a part of the select few who knew she had survived. The girl's medical records stated she had died during surgery, and in a way she had. She was not her own person anymore, but now belonged to him.

She would be his finest creation, better than his eldest, better than his youngest daughter. Better even than his son. She'd be strong, loyal, unwavering in her support. The perfect child, obidient, and best of all, completely under his control. With a flick of a switch, he could shut down her legs, her arms.

Her heart.

Behind him, he heard shuffling. After her last operation, he had his creation moved to his mansion's medical bay to keep her under close observation. He didn't even need to turn around to know who it was.

"I told you to stay in your room, Weiss." In the reflection of the glass, he saw the girl freeze. With her shoulder length hair, dressed in a long white cotton dress, she wasn't much to look at. Not many would, if she hadn't been his daughter. Though she was only twelve, already some of his business rivals had their eldest sons trying to take her away from him.

"I-I… just w-wanted to see-"

"Enough." Instantly she stopped speaking.

 _Obedient, but not enough._

He turned, facing her, hands behind his back. He tried to keep himself composed, but couldn't stop the slight sneer from forming on his face. His wife, the pathetic woman, had given him two daughters before finally giving him the son he wanted, yet the son was weak, both in mind and body. Doctors claimed it was because his wife had not been physically fit to bear a third child, but he ignored them. What did they know?

Besides being the CEO of Remnant's largest Dust company, he was also the foremost doctor in the field of cybernetic augmentation. And so, with his knowledge of cybernetics, Dust and physiology, he strived to create the perfect child. After the emergence of cybernetics, the law was revised, and one section stated that an heir to any large company must be at least 35% human in order to be within the law. Anything less than 35% would be considered complete robots, and thus had no right to own property. The first attempts were… disastrous. They were mostly death row prisoners, whose bodies were too old to handle the sudden replacement of most of their limbs and internal organs.

Around the sixth attempt he realized that the test subjects needed to be younger, more malleable, easier to subject to change. The only problem was finding suitable candidates. His own children wouldn't work, too many questions would be asked if they disappeared. The next three came from various places, one a runaway, the other an orphan, the last was abandoned, living on the streets. None worked.

Frustrated, he had almost given up. What he needed was a young, healthy child, who he could make perfect. So when his daughter had invited her friend from Vale over to Atlas, he agreed. The accident with the Grimm was unfortunate, but reflecting on it, realized that with such severe injury, it gave him a cause to take her from the normal staff of doctors.

He shook himself out of his thoughts, looking down at his daughter. "You want to see her? The girl whose near death _you_ caused? Have you considered that she might not want to see you?" She shrunk back, shoulders slumping with the guilt of the ordeal. "In any case, she has yet to wake up. No one except myself and the doctors get to enter the room."

"But I-"

"No!" She was shut down before she even had a chance to offer her opinion. Suddenly, the man got an idea, one that hopefully he could use to gain another obedient daughter. "You really want to see your friend?" The snow haired girl nodded, still looking at the ground. Internally, he smiled at her compliance, though he kept a stern outward look. "Then you will take care of her. After all, this is all your fault;" he walked past her, heading out of the room, "all actions have consequences, Weiss." With that he closed the door behind him, leaving his daughter alone with her thoughts.

* * *

Weiss stood silently in the small viewing room. She shivered. Despite hailing from Atlas itself, she was young enough to still feel the bitter cold of the room, like there was an ever present wind around her. From where she stood, she could only see the top of Ruby's head through the window. Slowly, she moved forward to enter, before veering to the left, grabbing a face mask and scrubs from the wall. There were some in her size, a reminder of what her father expected of her. She went over to the door, using all of her might pulling open the door. Once she bested the metal gateway, she felt the air rush into where here lay, filling the void. What had her father called it, Negative Pressure Room?

On the bed lay her friend, but she looked so different from only a few days ago. Her arms, legs, and half her face, all were made of metal. Around her, various monitors beeped and whirred. Ruby looked peaceful, though the image was ruined slightly by the scars on her face and abdomen, visible even under the plain white underclothes she was wearing. Weiss couldn't help but remember what had happened, and how everything had gone so wrong.

" _I can't believe you live in such a big house!"_

 _They were walking by the edge of a canyon, a river flowing a hundred feet below at the bottom of the drop. Weiss walked in front of Ruby so that she could warn her of any dips or ice patches. Though it was the first day of summer, being so far north meant they got snow all year round._

" _Yeah… I don't like hanging out there though. I much prefer coming here and walking around. It always seemed… freeing to be out here..." Weiss had taken Ruby directly from the Airship to the limo, traveling down to the southern part of Atlas where the weather was milder. Ruby was only staying for a few days, before heading back south to enjoy her summer with her family on Patch._

 _Weiss had met Ruby when her father had some business in Vale for a few weeks and had brought Wess along, sending her to the best combat school in that kingdom as an exchange student whilst he worked. Signal Academy actually didn't have an exchange program, but they weren't going to fight her father either, so they rolled with it._

 _The other kids either were afraid of her, or they were trying to get favors out of her. Even some of the teachers at Signal were eager to get in the good books of a Schnee. All of them wanted something from her. All but two; a pair of sisters - though Weiss honestly couldn't tell that on first Xiao Long was Weiss' age, with Ruby Rose being two years younger. They were the only ones who didn't care who her father was, or how much money her family had. She became friends with both, though mainly with Ruby._

 _At first it seemed like the sisters were as different in personality as they were in looks. But after being invited to their house, she saw that Ruby was not as quiet and reserved as she had first thought; she was bright, energetic and a cheerful optimist. She had the incredible ability to make everyone around her smile, as well as to make cookies disappear._

 _At the end of her father's trip, she invited Ruby to come visit her at her house during summer vacation. Then she went back to Atlas, but even in the cold, she still remembered the warmth that Ruby and Yang had shown her. The summer couldn't come quickly enough. It seemed to be years later when she got the message that Ruby would be coming for a few days._

 _She was so excited, she didn't give much thought to the fact that her father agreed right away. Ruby would be coming, and she had to prepare the best days ever, starting with a visit to her favorite spot. Things went wrong so fast._

 _They were just about to head back to the car, when Weiss heard the growling. Her first thought was that it was simply a fox or some other small creature, but then ahead of them, climbing up from the canyon, came a huge black paw, followed by a white bone plated face with the glowing red eyes._

 _Panic seemed to make the world slow down, sounds becoming muted and distant. The Grimm weren't supposed to survive this far north, not even here in the comparatively mild Southern Atlas. Distantly she could hear Ruby screaming in fright, and Weiss wanted to help her, to pull her and run. But her body had other ideas._

 _She turned, and ran. Behind her she could hear Ruby screaming, calling out for someone, anyone to save her. The screaming only asked for a few seconds, replaced by the horrific sounds of bones snapping, flesh tearing, monsters roaring. Weiss felt tears falling and her stomach churning at the sounds but her want and need to keep running won over until she reached the limo where the driver, having heard the screams and roars, was already on the line with emergency services._

 _Then the driver pulled out something from the trunk of the car, a gun, before heading toward the… the place… Weiss couldn't handle it. She threw herself out of the car as she emptied her stomach, lactic acid and nightmare inducing sounds taking their toll. She heard the first shot fired and her head went light, the vomiting didn't help either. Shakily she crawled into the open trunk, curling herself into a ball before passing out from the shock of it all._

* * *

Now she was here again, looking at her friend, fresh tears falling down her face.

"I'm sorry Ruby… I'm so sorry." As if the girl was privy to the confession on her friend's behalf, Ruby's monitors started to beep a little faster. She was waking up. A team of doctors suddenly rushed in, pushing Weiss out of the way as they began to examine her, while another guy moved around, activating the robotic arms and legs.

"Miss… can you speak?" one doctor asked as Ruby finally sat up. The flurry of activity died down and the room once again silent except for the machines. After one long moment, there came a response. Weiss wished she hadn't seen where it came from, it might have made it easier. In a flat, emotionless tone so unlike what she was used to hearing, Ruby spoke.

"Where am I?"

* * *

 **Hey,** _ **FeugoFox42**_ **here ('** _ **Feugo**_ ' **for short). I'm glad to be helping** _ **STRQ**_ **on this story. Um… yeah, I have no clue what else to write… hope you enjoyed it so far.**

 **STRQ here, the OW (original Writer) Feugo is gonna be helping out with this as they said. Mostly on the now epic dialogue. Go give their stories a read, and if you want to see the original draft, check it out on archive of our own, profile STRQ.**


	2. Shattered

The small house was quiet in the predawn darkness. Set far from the road, and surrounded by thick trees, the entire property was surrounded with an aura of calm serenity, privacy, and slight mystery. Like many others in the forests of Patch, this one was log cabin style, though with two floors rather than one.

As dawn approached, the lights in one room came to life, the orange glow spilling through the curtains onto the darkened lawn. The resident of the room, Taiyang Xiao Long, got up to start his day, not knowing what terrible news was heading his way.

Walking quietly to the kitchen, the blond haired man set a pot of coffee to brew, before heading upstairs to awaken his eldest daughter. On the way to wake her up he passed his youngest's room, Ruby's room. He smiled a bittersweet smile; she was due back from Atlas sometime later that day, but he was a little worried that he hadn't heard anything from her. It was unlike her, but he chalked it down to her forgetfulness and the distance.

Arriving at the right room, with it's flaming heart emblem, he knocked a few times, before calling out to Yang.

"Rise and shine sweetie." He received a groan in reply. Rightly so, it _was_ 5:30am, but Yang wanted to become a Huntress, so getting into early starts needed to be as natural as breathing by the time she enrolled, else she'd never get anywhere. Tai headed back down to the kitchen and was greeted with a completed coffee pot. Pouring himself a cup, he went to go check the mail, and bring in the newspaper that had been delivered at 5am, just as it was every day.

Sitting down, he read through the paper, looking at everything from Dust prices increasing, robberies in Vale, and an athlete who was disqualified after it was discovered he was cybernetically enhanced. By the time he was finished reading, it was well past 6. He could hear Yang using the upstairs shower. At least she was up now. So instead of interrupting her or cutting her shower short, he grabbed his clothes and went into the downstairs one.

Ten minutes later he was done, showering quickly became a habit from when he was at Beacon; take too long in there and his teammates would come barging in, Ice Dust in hand. Normally it was Qrow who did it, but the two girls chipped in on occasion, the ravenette doing it reluctantly though. He chuckled at the memory, yet also hoped no one tried that on Yang, less they'd end up with a few broken bones.

Dressed, dried and refreshed, Tai felt he was ready for the day, and anything it could throw at him. Oh, how wrong he was. At first, everything was normal; Yang, being on summer break from school, spent time working on her weapon design. Looking over her shoulder, Tai was impressed, as it seemed to be some sort of dual ranged shot gauntlets.

Afterwards, she and Tai did some unarmed sparring, working on Yang's prefered fighting style. The way she was progressing, he could tell she was relying heavily on punches, with the occasional kick thrown in for good measure. With what he had seen of her weapon's design, she would be formidable once she forged it, as already without it she could knock the wind out of him with one punch.

After their sparring finished at about 12, they took a break to have lunch. While Yang ate - peanut butter and jelly - Tai checked his scroll, and upon seeing no messages, started worrying. Going to a travel website, he saw that three airships had already flown in from Atlas. The fact that Ruby still had yet to contact them at all was very unlike her.

"Yang, get ready to go, we're going to-" he was interrupted by the doorbell. Sighing in relief, thinking it was Ruby, he went over to open it. Instead of his sweet little daughter, there was a grim faced man, dressed in the uniform of an Atlesian Specialist.

"Are you the parent of Ruby Rose?" Tai felt like Yang had punched him again. All the small clues started to add up, and as he put it all together, he felt his knees weaken, but he held himself upright as best he could. "Mr. Rose, is it?"

"Xiao Long, actually. Where is my daughter?"

The Specialist's face was filled with pity. "Can I come in, Sir? This isn't something to talk about on doorsteps" Tai stepped to the side, then closing the door behind the man. Every step he took after the man was shaky, his legs threatening to give out on him for real this time. The man seated himself on the couch, and Tai sat across from him.

"Dad, what's going on?" Yang asked from the entryway of the kitchen, "and who is this man?"

"I'm not sure sweetie. But what I am sure of is that this man is about to tell me where my daughter is" the blond threatened, his paternal instincts kicking in at the lack of solid information on his youngest's whereabouts. The stranger slowly nodded.

"Approximately 36 hours ago, your daughter Ruby was attacked by Grimm in the southern part of Atlas. She was rushed to the best hospital they had up there, but too much time had passed between the call and their arrival, and unfortunately doctors were unable to save her." Yang gasped at the information, tears already forming in her eyes at the thought of her baby sister no longer being with her, but Tai's reaction seemed much worse - he sat there, completely unchanged in look, or posture, or anything really. Even though he appeared unmoved on the outside as any good parent should, his mind came to terms with what he was told.

 _No...this...can't be happening…_

Tai listened as the man kept talking, about his daughter, funeral arrangements, but none of the words sank in. All he could think about was Ruby.

 _Not Ruby… not my little girl… not Ruby… Ruby…_

The world around him was shattering and all he could hear, over and over again, was the last thing Ruby had said to him.

" _I'll be back before you know it, Dad."_

It was all he could hear.

" _I'll be back before you know it, Dad."_

No other thing mattered to him anymore, the sound of those words playing on a constant loop in his head in an ultimately fruitless attempt at saving his daughter.

" _I'll be home as soon as I can Tai."_

As something was put into his hand, there was only silence as his mind took him back further than the past few days. He stood in the porch again, this time with both Yang and Ruby at his side, the youngest only 4 years old and the eldest turning 6 in 9 days. And opposite the three of them was Summer Rose, his second wife.

The first Rose he lost.

* * *

" _Cheer up sunshine, what did I promise?" the woman asked of her step-daughter._

" _That you would be home for my birthday?"_

" _And I won't break that promise." She wrapped her arms around the blonde child who giggled into her cloak and scurried back into the house. Summer then looked at Ruby, her face more downbeat than it ever had been before. "Ruby dear, what's the matter?"_

" _Don't wan' 'ou to go…" she sulked, clinging onto her Father's leg._

" _I know, I don't really want to go either. But I've been called and I must answer." The silver eyed young girl looked at her older counterpart, still unconvinced at the answer. "Come here!" Summer suddenly swooped in and caught her daughter in her arms and swept her off her feet, the toddler laughing hard at the sudden feeling of flight. "Tell you what: you behave for Daddy, and when I get home I'll bake you a batch of cookies, just for you." Young silver eyes shone in delight._

" _Really?!"_

" _Mom's honour." She placed a quick kiss on her daughter's nose and lowered her to the floor. "Now run off and find Yang."_

" _Love 'ou Mommy!"_

" _Love you too sweetheart." That left only the couple on the porch._

" _I'm with the kids Sum, did you have to take this one on?"_

" _Sorry Tai," she started, guilt in her voice, "but this one came from Ozpin. You know what he's like."_

" _Yeah, I guess."_

" _Besides, it's only for a week - I'll be back for Yang's birthday." He smiled at her, he couldn't stay mad at someone like her._

" _You better be," he teased._

" _I'll be home as soon as I can Tai." She leaned in and gave him one final kiss before picking up her bags and leaving towards the pickup point, ready for her next mission._

 _Her last mission._

The blond man was so caught up in his own emotions that before he knew it, hours had passed and the sky was dark. Yang was curled on his lap, tear stains on her cheeks. In his hand was a business card.

Slowly, so very slowly, he picked Yang up and carried her to her bed. He tucked her in, following deeply ingrained habits. Then, once she was safe in bed, he went outside and got into his car. Not to go anywhere, just to sit in. How long he just sat there, he didn't know. At some point, he realized his scroll was ringing.

"Hello?" his voice was ragged, hollow, empty once more. Just as it had been 5 years ago. The one that replied was just as gruff, but not in the same way. This voice was gruff because of the copious amounts of alcohol he consumed.

"Heard the news. You need some company?" Tai didn't know what he wanted right then, besides having both of his daughters back home safe and sound, so with nothing better to do he agreed to meet him at a bar in Vale.

* * *

When he arrived, Qrow was already sitting at the bar, drink in hand, another next to him. Tai sat down heavily on the barstool, picking up the glass and draining it, wincing slightly as the burning liquor went down. Without even asking, the bartender refilled his glass.

"How you holding up Tai?" Qrow asked, already drunk, something Tai very much wanted to be. He didn't answer, instead downing another glass. "How's firecracker?" Qrow tried again.

"How do you _think_ we're doing Qrow?" he shot back, emotions already high even before the drinks were getting to him. "Ruby she's… she's…" He couldn't bring himself to say the word, a sigh and a shot being the only suitable replacement for it. Like a flicked switch he was attacking his long-term friend once more "And you were hardly ever there for her, why do you even care?!"

"Why do I care? Tai I may just be a 'stupid drunk' but I'm your friend. I'm their Uncle, so-"

"So why didn't you _act_ like it then?" He downed another glass as he let the words sink in with the avian Hunter to his side. As the bartender went to refill the glass a fourth time, Tai muttered a defeated "just leave the bottle" to the man, who said nothing in return and fulfilled the patron's request. Tai didn't want to drown his sorrows, but damn it if he was going to let this pain sting forever.

"It was safer for everyone if I wasn't around them so much. I didn't want to leave you alone to fend for yourself, so I still visited but kept my distance the rest of the time."

"That's your excuse?" Sad blue eyes looked at his drink as he scoffed. "You Branwens are all the same…"

"What was that Tai?"

"You heard, Qrow! Raven was exactly the same, leaving just because 'it was safer for us'. D'you know what would be nice, Qrow? Do you? Some fucking moral support every once in awhile!"

"What do you think this is then, huh? A charity ball?! I heard the news and _I_ contacted _you_ to see if you were alright. Don't give me that 'I don't give moral support' bullshit, because we both know that it's not true!"

"Then where were you when Summer died?!" the blond finally snapped, standing up now and doing his tipsy best to intimidate his friend, who knew from his years at Beacon that he would be scary when he needed to be, but never intimidating. What he could be though, especially when he was on the wrong side of sober, was brutally harsh.

That question hurt like nothing else for Qrow…

"I was by her side as she took her last breath, that's where!"

… but nowhere even remotely near as much as the answer hurt.

"Oh, so you were there for _my wife_ when she died, but not for my daughter? That's _real_ classy there Qrow!"

"I knew where Summer was Tai! She didn't come back for Yang's birthday and I set off the morning after as fast as I could. I got there and the first thing I saw was her cape, then her weapon, then her! She opened her eyes for no more that 5 seconds, she tried to say something but that was it. She died that day in my arms. At least _you_ didn't have to experience that!"

"Yeah? Well, I've lost my first wife to her own selfish needs, my second one to Oum knows what and now my daughter because of Grimm. You haven't experienced loss like I have, Qrow!"

"It is not a fucking competition Tai!" The pair's argument was getting heated, to the point where a few of the patrons either moved further away, went outside or just finished their drinks and outright left.

"Ruby needed you more than Summer ever did!"

"Don't you dare play favourites between your wife and daughter!"

"Why? You do. You saw so much of Summer in Ruby that you just _had_ to follow after her like a lost Dust-damn puppy! She can't ev- couldn't even defend herself yet. What was stopping you this time?"

"The distance was one thing, the cold was another and the lack of decent drink was the final nail in the coffin."

"And because of that, Ruby had to die?!"

"I couldn't have gone even if I had known she wouldn't make it Tai." That last comment pushed Taiyang past the breaking point. He spun to the side as fast as he could manage and clocked Qrow right across the jaw sending him flying onto the floor.

"MY DAUGHTER IS DEAD!" he bellowed, silencing everyone in the bar, "AND IT IS ALL YOUR DAMN FAULT!" The blond threw what little Lien he had in his pocket on the bar and stormed out to his car, driving off back home in a semi-drunken rage.

"Should I call the authorities for you sir?" the bartender queried as the avian Hunter sat back on his barstool.

"Nah, let him work this out on his own. He needed something to let his anger out on, and I've taken hits from him before." He flexed his jaw muscles and felt a sharp pain where it felt a little loose from the hit. "That said, that's probably the best punch he's done in a long time, considering he polished half of that bottle himself in the time he was here. I think I may need the rest of this to dull the sting" he half told the bartender, half convinced himself as he picked the bottle up and took a swig straight from it.

 _Get home safe Tai,_ Qrow thought. _For Yang's sake if not your own._

* * *

The breeze moved through the trees, making them whisper and sigh. The moonlight glowed gently, illuminating the single white marble marker, making it almost glow silver. A few feet away, Tai kneeled, head bowed. The cliff on the far side of Cliffside Forest was the tallest point in Patch, the only place good enough for Summer. The view over Patch was breathtaking, but it didn't hold his attention like it usually did.

His world was shattered, and there was no one left except Yang to pick up the pieces. She'd already done it once, but to ask it of her again felt like putting her through hell a second time. No, he needed to do this alone.

"I'm sorry Summer," he croaked, alcohol still in his system but not enough to cloud his emotions or let them run free, "I failed you. Ruby's going to be with you soon. She… she was killed by Grimm. A bunch of Beowolves, no less. I hope I'm wrong and that my little girl is still out there, but I've lost so much already that focussing on that would only get me killed quicker. At least you'll have company wherever you are…"

He wiped the tears that threatened to escape his eyes as he stood to leave. "She'll be right here next to you once everything's done. I promise." With that, he turned around and slowly trapsed his way back to his car, the clouds briefly covering the moon in a thin veil that darkened the land.

* * *

 **Feugo here. So I wrote the dialogue between Qrow and Tai with the only instructions from STRQ being "Tai is going through the 'anger' stage" (those unfamiliar with what we're on about, look up the Kübler-Ross Model of Grief or, for a working example, the 'Game Theory' Video on YouTube: 'Is Link Dead in Majora's Mask?') and I thought that including Summer would draw parallels between the two deaths. Funnily enough, STRQ comes back to me later explaining how he planned on including Summer somewhat anyway… weird… Hope y'all're enjoying what we have so far**

 **STRQ: Nuff said. Hope you enjoyed it.**


	3. Spotted

Ruby stood at the edge of the roof, looking out over Vale. The city was a mess, streets going every which way, buildings of all different sizes, and more shady corners than a criminal could ever want. Disgusting. She didn't see why this place even existed. Especially since there were criminals threatening the wellbeing of the SDC, her company. Well, her company in a few years.

Closing her right eye, she activated her bioscanner, scanning the building across from her. Besides for several people on the first three floors, civilians who legitimately lived there, there were three biosigns on the fourth and top floor. They must be the White Fang members, as the scanner marked them as non-human. However, if the reports she'd been given were to be believed there was supposed to be a fourth and fifth, human criminals Roman Torchwick and Neo.

The three biosigns were moving and looked like they were talking, but there was something off. Suddenly, one of them flinched at something that didn't appear on the scanner.

Suddenly realizing her mistake, she switched to thermal vision. The whole world was suddenly made of swirls of reds, blues, greens and oranges. Two of the Faunus appeared as slightly warmer than normal figures, one - most likely a cold-blooded reptile Faunus - was slightly darker against the background and off to the side were two more, showing up only as their hearts, and dim green blurs in their necks.

Biometric Dampeners; illegal in all four Kingdoms. They hid a person's biosigns, enabling them to slip past most security terminals, turrets, and cyborgs. Raising her left arm, a small hatch opened up on her wrist, shooting out a line over to the roof of the building, which was lower than hers. Ziplining across the roofs, she also marked all the people, so her radar would keep track of them, even if the lights were cut.

She landed and rolled with the momentum, making sure to make no noise. Crouching down above where the Faunus were, she flipped the tip of her right pointer finger open, spraying a liquid explosive in a circle, where it solidified. She stepped back, before pressing a button on her right arm, detonating the explosive with micro detonators mixed in with it.

A four foot circle of plaster that once was the ceiling of the room fell on top the Faunus, knocking them out cold. Before either Neo or Roman could react, she dropped in through the hole, both ams transforming into weapons; her left into a short but wicked blade, the right becoming a much more useful but more cumbersome miniature minigun.

"Halt! Roman Torchwick and Aurora "Neopolitian" Angler, you are under arrest for conspiracy against the SDC, illegal cybernetic augmentation, petty crime, multiple accounts of murder, and contact with terrorist groups. Do not resist, or I am authorized to use as much force as necessary." To prove her point, the began to rev up the barrels of her minigun.

Of course, they resisted. With the charges against them, they would receive the death penalty several times over, so avoiding that would be nice for them. Roman took aim with his cane-gun, while Neo rushed her, pulling the hidden blade out of her parasol.

Sighing, Ruby raised her arm to block the strike, hearing her arms starting to hum. The second the thin blade hit her arm, there was a clang as the two bits of metal hit each other and an explosion of sparks, and before anyone but Ruby knew what was going on, Neo flew back with the force, body twitching from the electricity coursing through her. Ruby then turned to face Roman but the faithless slimeball had fled.

Instead, Ruby pressed a couple of buttons on her arm; one to contact the VPD, the other opening up the hatch on her left leg. From there she pulled out binders and attached them to Neo's wrists, ankles and neck. Turning them on, the Gravity Dust weaved into the material made the small criminal float, for easy transport, like a psychopathic multicoloured balloon. Ruby began dragging her through the air by her feet, not caring if she hit her head on various things. Once outside, she left a message for the normal cops, sending them in to collect the Faunus.

Ten minutes later, she was in her airship heading back to Atlas with only half her prey. Father would have to forgive her, as she had assumed that Roman would try to help his companion, rather than abandon her. Neo would be of use though. She would lead them right to Roman. Father had many ways to make people talk. Many, many ways.

* * *

When Yang heard the news that another group of White Fang members had been caught under strange circumstances, she immediately contacted her friend in the VPD.

"Leo, what do you have for me? Is it her?" Leo Gold was a detective with the VPD and one of the few Faunus on the force. He gave her info on cases whenever she asked. After she saved him from an anti-Faunus group that had tried to kill him, she asked if she could cash in a favour. Sadly for him, she was cashing in on a lot of favours.

"Yang, we just got the call 30 minutes ago, we don't even have the names of the Faunus involved yet." Yang switched the call to video chat, and gave him a disbelieving look. He nervously tugged at hs collar, and Yang could hear his lion tail swishing, a sure sign he was not telling her everything.

"Come on Leo… you can always trust me." The guy sighed, letting go of his pride.

"We'd… been suspecting that there was White Fang activity in that place for some time now, so we had the place bugged whilst no one was there. Some of those hidden cameras on the scene revealed that the criminals Roman Torchwick and his associate Neo were there in the room as well as a couple of members. Roman fled the scene but… someone disabled Neo and took her. It might have been her, the resolution is very poor on the videos and they were being deliberately scrambled anyway. This was after they were there, so whatever or whoever this thing is, it obviously has its own scrambler."

"Thanks Leo. Be sure to send me those videos once you guys clear them up" said Yang.

"I'll try. I swear Yang, you're more into the Cyber case than anyone else on the force." said Leo, before hanging up. Yang put down her Scroll.

"I have to be, if i want to see my sister again" she muttered to the empty room. Silently she went to her own room, one wall covered with news articles, photos, and holographic videos, all about one subject, as clarified by the single piece of paper in the middle: Cyber Rose is Ruby Rose. "My sister is alive, I know it."

* * *

 **This is your resident Feugo speaking, I have nothing to say. Your turn STRQ**

 ***awkwardly hands over the microphone, staying longer than needed and disappearing halfway through in a completely un-secret method***

 **Well if anyone is still confused, there was a timeskip. Ruby is 16 now, Yang and Weiss are, of course, 18. Also...don't hate me for giving Neo an "official name" because it just seemed like the thing to do. also, shorter chapter, but can't be helped.**


	4. Remembered

The ride back to Atlas had been tense for Ruby. Not only because of her failure, but because Neo, bound to the seat opposite her, woke up halfway there and spent the entire trip glaring across the aisle. This didn't affect her at all emotionally, but it was annoying to constantly have her threat assessment alarm ringing off the charts. She was almost glad when they landed on the private airstrip on the estate grounds and a team of men took her away to the containment facility.

Almost.

As she stepped out of the airship, she saw that father was right there, looking displeased at the return of only Neo. He didn't look at Ruby the entire time she was there, save maybe a slight glance as she first touched ground, favouring instead to watch as the team carried the troublesome mute away. He only turned to her once she was out of sight.

"What happened to the other one?" his voice was serious and to the point, with a trace of disappointment.

"I didn't expect him to run away fr-"

"You were built to predict things like this" he interrupted. "You will never be good enough if you don't use everything you have to the fullest extent." There was silence for a moment, then: "did you sustain any damage?" The question was not out of any concern for her, but simply routine.

"Only a minor surface scratch on my arm, sir." she replied, raising said arm. He glanced at it, before waving her away. "Go get it fixed." he said as he turned away "Since you managed to get the more dangerous of the two, there won't be any punishment." Ruby nodded, heading the opposite way, walking through the opulent hallways and grand chambers, filled with the most advanced tech, robotic servants in niches along the walls, holo-screens popping up as she passed.

Eventually she came to a door set in a distant hall, tucked away near the back of the house. Ruby bent down slightly, aligning her real eye with the scanner, wincing slightly as the laser read her retina. The lock clicked open with a "Welcome: CEO010" from the house's AI assistant.

The room was sparse, with only the basic necessities to live: a bed, bathroom, small kitchenette. Besides that there was only a table, on which were many cybernetic maintenance and repair tools. Though the table was technically organized, there were simply too many tools for a table of that size.

Weiss suddenly rushed out from the bathroom, and just like every time before, Ruby felt a strange feeling when seeing her; her snowy waist length white hair done up in an off centre ponytail, her icy blue eyes absent of joy, the scar on one from an accident with a fuse cutter. She could have had it fixed in a few minutes, be without the scar. However, father had insisted that it be treated with old medicine, the kind normally only found in the slums nowadays. It showed them both how much he valued her, to give her medicine from the slums rather than what advanced concoctions they had for people like himself or Ruby. Weiss knew that, if he treated her like he treated Ruby now - the perfect obedient daughter destined to inherit the company - then she would have had the scar removed years ago.

"W-what happened?" she asked backing over to the tool table, hands ghosting over the tools behind her, a twinge of fear in the older girl's voice. It felt wrong to Ruby that Weiss was afraid of her.

"Surface scratch, right arm. Simple fix" Weiss' hands immediately found the filler tool, which looked almost like a 'pen' from older days and filled a similar purpose. Though unlike the pens of old, this wrote with liquid metal to fill scratches and gouges. Ruby sat on the edge of the bed, as Weiss worked with the tool, filling the scratch. There would be no trace of it in just a few minutes and Ruby would once more be flawless.

The filler had solidified by the time they were finishing up, and in that time neither had spoken a single word. As Ruby was getting up to leave, she noticed something else on the cluttered desk: a letter. Her left eye zoomed in on it, focussing on what was most likely the return address. A large portion of it was covered by a Gravitational Anomaly Removal Device, but she could make out the name: Yang Xiao Long.

On seeing that name suddenly there felt like there were hot knives or claws digging around inside of her brain, throwing a flood of things at her; it sounded so familiar. Images of a girl with blonde hair holding her as a baby, the same girl laughing and handing her cookies - that had to be this Yang Xiao Long person. A man sitting with her at a table piled with food, 'Yang' on one side of her and someone else, a white blur, feeding her some food on her other side.

Weiss called out Ruby's name time and time again, but nothing was working. She was stuck in this trance, and the thought made the snow haired girl tear up in a panic.

The memories seemed to go on for a lifetime, all featuring this mysterious 'Yang' or the man with the same colored hair. Was he her father? Older brother? She didn't remember.

Remember… Memories… those words seemed right to use… it meant that she knew them from before - that was the only explanation. But from where?

Then they stopped, and she felt smooth arms around her, the scent of mint and vanilla wafting through her sensors. Weiss was staring at her concerned, most likely thinking that she had damaged her somehow, traces of tears pooling in the corner of her ice blue eyes.

"W-who…" For the first time in six years, there was emotion in her voice, a raw vulnerability that felt alien to both Ruby and Weiss. For a moment the world seemed to shimmer, until she was somewhere else completely, a hallway lined with metal boxes… lockers? Then she was right where she had been. There must be something glitching out with her computer systems. But she knew that wasn't it. Her brain had found these memories, not her CPU.

Who was she? She was Ruby… that much she knew that from seeing some papers on father's desk. At the thought of father, all the emotion drained away. " _Emotion is not becoming of a creation such as yourself."_ The words he had drilled into her, time and time again. " _What you must do in life will be a thousand times harder if you are constantly caught up in the 'emotions' and 'morals' of everything"._

She stood suddenly, startling Weiss away from her then turned and marched out of the room, not looking back once at Weiss or anything else. Weiss was left alone in her room, with only tools and thoughts. She looked over at her desk, noticing that it should be better organized.

She had been only fixing it for a few minutes when she found the letter, halfway out of its hiding spot. Weiss had received it a week ago, but hadn't opened it for fear of what it might contain. Her family and Ruby already blamed her, Weiss wasn't sure she could take any more. Had Ruby seen it? Was this the cause of whatever had just happened? Weiss looked at the envelope, black letters against cream white paper.

What had just happened? For a moment, it had seemed like Ruby was… normal, emotional. Real. Then she had gone back to her regular self, the one she had been with for the past six years. But that moment, holding her, for just a second she had felt Ruby held on tighter to her. Finally making up her mind, she tore open the envelope, finding a surprisingly short letter.

 _Is Ruby alive?_

Yang… didn't know? Or more likely, didn't believe she was dead. She was about to throw both the letter and envelope into the trash when she heard something else in the envelope shift around. She pulled it out, a thin strip of metal, with a round circular indent in the center on one side. It was light, the shape, size and color reminding her of a stick of gum.

She pressed her thumb against the indent for a moment, and seconds later, the thing hummed, and a holo-video popped up showing a group of men and one woman. She recognized two of them; one was even being kept here.

' _So this must be the mission Ruby had been on_ ,' she thought to herself. As if on queue, Ruby came in, fought for a bit, then she was gone. That was all she could make out through the static, even with the video being cleaned.

Then at the end, with no prompting from her the video rewound, and stopped at right when Ruby dropped in, just before the first burst of static. Then the video zoomed and enhanced, showing clearly her face, regular eye cold, detached, the other glowing a reddish orange, clearly using thermography, but to the uninformed outsider, would look evil.

Once again, this time in the video, three words popped up, though slightly different from those on the letter:

 _Is this Ruby?_

Weiss felt a bit of panic. She had been trained to always answer questions honestly. However, if she told anyone outside the family circle, she wouldn't live to see another day. She couldn't even tell father because he had forbidden her having any outside contact. The only reason she had this letter was because of their Cybernetically Linked Interservice Network, or CLIN. She like to call it Klein, as that made it sound like a person rather than a fleet of service droids. She had hacked a few of the droids to bring her things, like letters, food, and sometimes even candles.

Now though, she would need to get working on more of CLIN, as she would need all the secret assistance she could get. Soon, Klein would have a new mission: find anything related to the Xiao Long family. She knew if she tried hard enough that she could bring Ruby back.

For them, and for her.

* * *

 **Feugo here, I'm loving where STRQ is taking this, and I hope y'all are too.**

 **STRQ: i am quite proud of CLIN. nothing else to say. Be sure to leave comments, as any suggestions might get added, and outside perspectives are always welcome.**


	5. Broken

She walked alone. She always had. Well, not always, but it had been so long since she had been with others that she might as well have always been this way; cold, dark, empty. She didn't remember much about her parents, just that they looked something like her. Including her Faunus heritage.

She winced as some man rammed into her as he passed, causing her broken arm to throb painfully. After mumbling an apology she kept going, no destination in mind. The broken arm was a reminder that even with a new class of citizens below them, Faunus were still the better target for violence.

Robots didn't feel anything.

She continued to stumble forward, the streets changing constantly; bright, filled and 'safe', to dark, empty and dangerous, even interspersing a combination of the two in there for good measure. The past weeks had been a blur for her, constantly on the move, searching for a revenge she would never get. Still, she knew of only one place as shifting as this: Vale.

Once the world had become a world of Cybernetics, the four kingdoms had embraced it differently. Atlas had gone totally with it, while Mistral had completely denied it. Vale had gone halfway, and Vacuo used it as necessary. No one had ever thought to ask if Menagerie wanted, or even needed, that technology.

All the envoys they sent to Atlas or to Vale either came back completely ignored, or didn't come back at all. Meanwhile everyday in Menagerie, Blake watched or heard about some death or crippling accident that could have been fixed with cybernetics. Then, one day, her brother had enough. She was 10, her brother was 15. He told no one except Blake that he was going.

" _Don't worry Blake, I'm not going to fail. Unlike the others, I see no need to beg for it like an animal."_

Then he had put on his pack, coat and mask and was off. He sent letters often, detailing how it was more difficult than planned to steal what they needed, how he couldn't get a home so he was living on the streets. Then, a month after he left, the letters stopped, and she never saw him again.

An investigation was started, but as there were no Faunus on the police force at the time, it was dropped fairly quickly. Another reason it was dropped was because signs pointed to Atlas and something no one wanted to go digging into: the discrimination in Atlas.

She had wanted to leave to find him immediately, but her parents refused to even let her leave their house. The few times she was let out, it was with several bodyguards, and never anywhere near the docks. So she waited, pretended to forget about it, but all the while keeping in mind everyone who had died, and who would die because of the discrimination and indifference to their race. Then a few years ago she found her way out.

They went around every few years, with their black and white robes with the red hoods. Normally her father would turn them away, but that year she beat him to the punch, inviting them in, and after crying from her mother and silent anger from her father, she went off with the White Fang. For the first month or so she was in "probationary status", which meant she spent those months recruiting others and speaking at rallies on Menagerie. Then she finally got her mask, and her first mission.

She didn't even remember what it was, mostly because it didn't matter. The second she was off Menagerie she ran away, abandoning her partners Adam and Ilia in order to pursue her real goal; finding her brother. Even though the going was slow at first, she found a few nuggets of information from the few Faunus shopkeepers and homeless Faunus she met.

With so little information, she couldn't get a complete idea of what had happened. She knew he had arrived in Vale at least, and had stayed somewhere in the slums in between the high tech apartments and stores. After that she knew he was evicted and living on the streets, but other than that, he seemed to have completely disappeared. The only lead after that was that some less than reputable Faunus thugs had seen him taken by Atlas military police.

It hadn't been long before they caught up to her. The White Fang wasn't happy she had abandoned her post right after being let off probation. As a form of cruel fate, they sent Ilia and Adam after her. They would have killed her if it hadn't been for the simple fact that neither they nor her were at all familiar with the city. Still, in escaping them she had taken a solid and painful fall from the roof of a building, resulting in her broken arm.

Now here she was, tired, hurting, and… were the lights turning off? No, she was simply blacking out. The last thing she fully remembered doing was turning to not land on her injured arm. For the next… however long, she wasn't sure, she existed in a world of white, floating on nothing, feeling distant pain, but nothing she had to worry about yet. Not yet.

* * *

"What do you mean this changes nothing?"

Yang was in the police video room, where she and Leo had been reviewing the unscrambled video feed. Yang had been keen to get a clear view on the right eye, the one real one, and was initially ecstatic on seeing the find. She was certain that it was her sister, with her distinctive silver eyes, and for her that was more than enough proof to start searching for her. Yet here was Leo saying they couldn't take this to the higher-ups.

"We can't convince the commissioner that this is your sister - who may I remind you, is officially marked by Atlesian officials to have died, and Atlas never makes mistakes of that degree - based entirely around the color of her eyes. Anyone could wear contacts of any color to mask their real eyes. Even you can't be 100% identified all the time, your eyes change from lilac to red all the time."

Yang sighed in frustration. "What _would_ convince them to realise I'm right? Because I know I'm right. I feel it."

Leo thought for a moment, before sighing tuning off the monitors and turning the lights back up. "At this point… a fresh DNA sample would be the only thing." He rose from his seat and opened the door, clearly indicating they were done for today. Yang left the station, looking up at the sky, which was hard to see in the city. Still, her searching eyes managed to make out one star, the only one she knew. Sirius, Ruby's favorite star. A part of the only constellation she knew, Canis Major, or Big Dog. Ruby loved dogs. She walked back through the city, unaware of the tears falling from her fiery red eyes.

 **STRQ: it's been wayyyyy too long, but honestly college sucks so in a herculean effort i'm going to try to get updates for all my stories, and if i get that done before monday, possibly second updates too.**

 **And I'm here to help! It's Feugo, BTW. I'm still here too.**


	6. Ignitited

"HYYYYYYYAAA!"

With a crash, the last target drone smashed into the ground, a newly acquired hole through the middle of it. The drone spasmed around on the ground for a second as if it were alive before a short burst of gunfire tore it to pieces. All around were the destroyed remains of other drones that had met a similar fate; some burning, some sparking, all torn to shreds. In the middle of it all crouched a striking figure with dark gunmetal limbs gleaming duly in the light, and pale toned skin, covered in a sheen of sweat.

She wore only a sarashi wrap and shorts, the rest left unclothed, foregoing even shoes, as her metal feet had more grip than even the best footwear. Slowly standing up, she looked up at the display screen, showing the time and number of drones destroyed. The time read one minute, the total kills: 78, better than her previous high of 70. Picking up a towel she wiped the sweat from her face, leaving the room to be cleared by the servants.

Entering the small changing room, she slipped off the shorts and undid the sarashi, stepping into the hygiene stall, which sprayed her down in a cleanliness foam that wouldn't damage her limbs, before gently blowing her dry. She stepped out, opening the locker and changing into her casual wear, a pair of white slip on shoes, white pants, a blue undershirt and a white duster with blue trim an the family logo on the back.

Leaving the room she walked around the manor, taking simple pleasure that one day soon this would all be hers. Not many could appreciate just how wonderful the house was, because they'd only see the house as items placed in spots. But with her enhanced optics, data analysis and pattern recognition abilities she was able to see the fact that everything was perfectly symmetrical, down to the micrometer. Every single thing was exactly where it was supposed to be, and spaced just so that they were far away enough to not be cluttered yet close enough to not seem empty.

Room after room of perfect symmetry, all of it in beautiful hues of white ranging from the rest of snow whites to white bordering on pale blues. The colors of her family.

 _These aren't your family colors…_

Ruby whipped around wondering how on Remnant someone could sneak up on her like that, only to see no one. The room she was in, the art gallery, was as empty as usual, the only time there were guests over was when father had business dinners. Ever since that moment a week ago Ruby had been plagued with voices like that, filling her with doubt, mistrust and fear, emotions that seemed like long forgotten echoes at this point. They only lasted brief moments, dissipating like the fleeting warm days of what Atlas had of summer.

Without really knowing why Ruby once again found herself in front of the same painting, tucked away in the corner, out of sight of the rest of the room inside a small alcove. The title of the work was "A field of dreams" and father most likely wouldn't have even considered buying it if it hadn't been the most expensive piece of art, the artists masterwork. Unlike the rest of the art in the gallery - which were all painted in muted tones to match the rest of the house - this one was comparatively obnoxiously colorful. It depicted a small child, the gender unknowable as they faced away from the viewer, and wore a long raincoat, a bright yellow in color. They stood in a field of red flowers, poppies, roses, carnations, she wasn't sure. The specifics were lost, as the artist had blurred everything together.

Ruby turned, leaving the room, yet the whole way back to her room her vision swam with the afterimages of those bright reds and yellows, swimming dots in her eye.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

"I'd be real careful if I were you"

That was the first this she heard when she woke up. The voice was familiar yet foreign at the same time. It was clearly female, yet had the roughness and the canter of someone living in a rough place, a join or die kind of place. The overarching accent was Valean, that much she was certain of. Opening her eyes slowly, she saw she was in what seemed to be a combination house, hospital, mechanic shop and fighting arena. She was in the housing area, on a basic cot, while in front of her was the source of the voice.

Calling her a woman at this point would have been a very generous gesture. Her arms and everything waist down was robotic, as was a large portion of her face. They were not the high quality kind of cybernetics either, the kind that could pass as real. These were the bare bones kins where you could see all the inner workings. Besides that fact, Blake was also quite sure they were home made, and quite illegal.

"Not going to say anything? After I saved your ass and brought you here?" the woman said, leaning back slightly.

"W-where is here?" Blake managed to choke out, her throat as dry as the Vacuoan desert, "who are you?" The woman laughed, seemingly pleased by this response.

"Both great questions, shows you're not all dumb." The woman reached behind her, the elbow joint on her arm bending backwards, and grabbed a can of PowerUp, a cheap drink, a combination of coffee and liquor sold in slums everywhere. Tossing it to Blake, she continued to speak. "For now, just call me Fixer. And as to where you are, well, take a look for yourself" gesturing, she pointed to what Blake had thought was just a wall, but was actually a window set to full opacity.

Outside the window was a sprawling cityscape that seemed to be made of haphazardly placed buildings, some made of Stone and others of more modern plasteel stacked on top, next to and under each other. The most striking thing was the giant columns of Durasteel, rising up into the night sky. No, not the sky. The underside of some great structure.

"Welcome to the city under the city" said Fixer with a wry smile. "You're in Old Vale"

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

 **A short chapter to build some tension. If anyone is feeling like the "city underneath a city" thing sounds familiar, it is based off of something from another book, one of my favorites, The Roar by Emma Clayton.**

 **And Mountain Glenn, when you think about it (but I don't think STRQ put two and two together when he wrote it)**


	7. Seen

Blake stared out into the cavern not believing what she saw. Old Vale, strictly speaking, wasn't really a part of Vale propper, as it had been a small town farther down the coast. However in the years leading up to "The Advancement Age" as some called it, all four kingdoms had been boldly expanding their territory, a time now called the Expansionary Period. Due to the small towns lower elevation, when Vales expansion reached their spot, they expected to be absorbed into it. However, the Valeian council, corrupt and lazy, went straight over them, building a sort of roof right over the town to keep Vale on level ground. Afterward, the city was renamed New Vale, and the buried citizens eventually named their shamble town Old Vale.

Years later and the place was notorious across Sanus as the new black market, more shady and evil than the one in Mistral. Part of the reason was that New Vale had little idea it existed, as only the highest few of the Council knew of its continued existence. The other reason was that it was where all the criminals went, whether as punishment from the council or to escape them. It was said almost anything could be bought or fetched down here, for a price. Blake suddenly felt very cold.

It was when she went to wrap her arms around herself then she realized something new, and even more horrible. Her left arm, the one that had broken in her fall, wasn't her arm anymore. It was a cybernetic arm, one of the first models made, using the oldest tech from then. It was also stripped of its valuable surface sheet metal, so all the mechanisms were exposed. From what she could see, the "fixer" woman had added an extendable knife, a charge gun, and what appeared to be a plug for a computer.

"W-...what did you do to me!?" she shouted moving the arm away from her as if that would help. Fixer just looked on with the same smile, lighting a cigarette and taking a sip of PowerUp.

"Now that's no way to say thanks, missy." she paused taking a drag of her cigarette, "the way I figure it, you could've been a lot worse off. Found you while doin' an upper raid. You was lying in the alley, arm all twisted like, alley creepers were about to have their way with you. I got you out quick like, but too quick see, we both fell back down here, messed up your arm to a real mess. We don't got no advanced doctors down here, so i just up and lopped it off, gave ya a new one."

Blake listened to her with horror and fascination. Her cadence, the words she used, it was all so unlike anything in the kingdoms. And from what she heard, she really did owe her her life. She shuddered to think what "alley creepers" would have done with her. "Thank you, uh, Fixer. I guess it's not that bad considering the alternative" for some reason this seemed to amuse Fixer, whe leaned back in her chair chuckling.

"What is it?" Blake asked, wondering what could have been so funny in her statement.

"Shoot girl," fixer replied, "you keep walkin' 'round here talking like that, you gonna attract a great deal a' attention from the wrong people. See?" She pointed out the window, "them out there, living in here? They don't take kindly to outsiders wanderin' in on their turf. Me? I'm a more open minded gal, so you'll be fine with me. S'long as you don't speak a peep." Blake unintentionally gulped at the semi-threat.

"Why don't they like outsiders? I thought this was like a black market?"

If fixer had be chuckling before, she was howling with laughter now. "Oh yeah there's a black market all right, but pretty girl like you is sooner be product than buyer!"

Blake suddenly felt like the queasiness from her broken arm was returning. "You mean…"

"Oh yeah darlin'. Slaves, body parts, and the more carnal things; you'd be any one of those 'fore you could shout for help." Fixer stood up, gesturing at the window again putting the opacity back to full. "Seemed like you was in a hot pan before. Well, lemme welcome you to the fire."

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Ruby stood at full attention as the airship flew smoothly and silently through the night. Based on scans se knew they were currently moving through a thick cloud formation 9000 feet over Mistral. In front of here, visible only to her, stood Father briefing her on the mission while relevant data, analysis, blueprints, human profiles and records filtered through her mind. A normal person would have needed days to process it all but she was going through it in the background of her mind, and she'd remember every detail. At the moment though, Father's words were most important.

"The Soleil Corporation recently moved their main headquarters to Mistral. I believe this is because they are trying to hide their research from me, and our company as a whole. It seems they forget that they are a part of our Mega corporation. Now the last reliable source I have indicates that they were making some sort of progress on either a new type of dust or a new application of dust. It's quite possible that both are true now, as that was a few months back. I've sent you that report, as well as every report since then. However every report after the first should be considered as falsified information, is that clear?"

"Yes Sir."

He nodded before continuing. "Now all I want you to do is gain entry to their R&D department and take anything of interest. Due to the sensitivity of this mission and the possibility of any volatile dust experiments, you will be doing this mission dark, no radio contact. If you are not at rendezvous for more than one hour after the scheduled time, you will be considered compromised and the location will be destroyed."

"Yes sir, I will not fail," she snapped a salute as the image faded away. She took a few seconds to pull up the map of the Facility and the surrounding area, marking a path to her goal, before being interrupted by the pilot.

"Drop zone in 30 seconds ma'am"

Ruby turned, facing the rear doors of the ship, waiting, the normal feeling of unfeeling within her, as seconds later the doors hissed open and she ran jumping out to begin her 9000 foot drop. But immediately there was a sudden and startling difference.

She was terrified. Why, she didn't understand. She had done drops higher than this before, with no parachute either; the shock absorbers she had were top notch, but still some small but loud part of her brain was screaming that someone her age should not be falling from this height. If it hadn't been for her backup systems, then the mission would have been very short.

As soon as she hit 3000 feet, the flaps on her arms opened, straightening her into a spread eagle dive and slowing her enough so that her chute could safely deploy. The sudden jolt from being slowed by the parachute started her back to her regular state, blank, emotionless, calm. But the random occurance of emotions was starting to worry her. If they kept impacting her performance, someone was bound to notice.

Minutes later, she landed safely on the roof, the parachute retracting back into her back, a series of small robotic arms refolding it. Then she made her way over to the roof access door. The door, obviously, had no handel on the outside, but that wouldn't stop her. Kneeling down, she placed her hand by the crack under the door, and with a small pop, detached her hand, which folded inward to become thin enough to slide under the door.

Once it was on the other side, it was child's play to make it pull the handle, thus allowing her to magnetically pull the door open. Once in the stairwell, she quickly reattached her hand then activated her hacking device, hacking the entire facilities camera network. Quickly she reprogrammed every camera along her path to replay the last thirty seconds of footage on a loop for the next hour, while still recording live. Her backup systems would take care of editing her out of the footage while she worked.

Everything was going smoothly, that is until she reached the R&D department, which was filled with light. No one was supposed to be here at this time of night. Slowly, she peeked her head up to see through a window.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0 Minutes earlier:

The large compound looked foreboding in the dark. She had been skeptical at first, when the letter came in telling her to go to the Soleil Corporation headquarters in mistral at 2 am in three days time, and she wouldn't have, had the message not been so odd. To start with, it was encrypted, and it was quite advanced. The second was the contents, just the address and the date and time with the words: "go here". By that point most regular people would have simply ignored it and written it off as a prank, but the name at the bottom sealed the deal for her: Weiss Schnee.

Now here she was, waiting outside a closed building housing a Dust research and application company. Then from the darkness of the parking lot came footsteps. Yang turned around, fists up for a fight but it wasn't guards, or soldiers. It was just a girl, dark skin, dark hair and blue eyes filled with worry and strife. She wore a clean white lab coat over a white shirt and blue skirt. The lab coat had a symbol on the chest pocket, one that matched the one on her forehead: a gold oval surrounded by four smaller gold circles.

"My name is Ciel Soleil, Weiss sent me to help you"

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

What Ruby saw was the young CEO of the Soleil company, Ciel, talking to another girl, possibly a few years older, who was wearing a dark colored suit, the "stealth" aspect given away by her… by her long golden blonde hair. Ruby shook away the dizziness, instead amplifying her hearing to listen in.

"The place is heavily fortified, but this should be able to get you in no problem, just put the band part around your forehead and press the touchpad on your wrist"

Ruby watched Ciel explaining something to the other girl, before suddenly the blonde girl shimmered and vanished. Ruby quickly flipped through night, thermal and x-ray but still picked up no trace of her, that is, until she switched to echolocation. A few seconds later the two continued speaking, overwhelming her incredibly sensitive echolocator.

"The suit hides you from x-ray, thermal, nightvision, everything we could think of."

"How does it work?"

The voice was so familiar that ruby almost felt herself slipping away again, and she almost missed the explanation

"...new kind of dust, bends light so you cant be seen. After than we added thermal regulators and lead nano weave and you have what you are wearing now, the Ghost Suit."

As Ciel went on about more technical ability, they moved out of the room, possibly to go test it. Ruby waited a few moments until she no longer picked up on their voices before slowly entering the room, walking over to where she saw three containment fields. One was empty, while the other two contained the supposed "Ghost Suits". Ruby knew that taking the suits was out of the question, however each one had tubes leading away from them to tanks across the room, Dust tanks.

"Bingo."

 **Longer chapter than usual i believe, so enjoy some more Ruby, Blake, and some Yang too. Reviews always appreciated. Don't be afraid to be critical.**


	8. Planned

As she followed Ciel through the deserted compound, Yang felt as if she had been very close to something back in that room. As if she had been closer than ever to her goal. Still, in the months she'd been working even harder to find her sister, she hadn't found much. Now, the last person to have probably seen Ruby alive was giving her help to do something wild. From what Ciel had explained, there were rumors surrounding the man Jacques Schnee. Rumors of illegal experimentation, and of murder. Rumors that he had built himself a heir to take over his company, and that anyone to pry into it had disappeared, as had everyone involved, supposedly.

So Ciel, with the help from Weiss, had come up with a plan to confirm these rumors. Ciel also mentioned that Weiss wanted to speak with her. The plan was that Yang would wear this ridiculously tight suit, and sneak into the mansion at the same time as the general arrived. General Ironwood visited Jacques every month or so to discuss their combined stranglehold on the Atlas government as well as talk about their most recent stake, making the SDC into a PMC, or Private Military Company, separate from the standing government.

The plan was to have her hiding nearby, and once the gates opened to let the general in she would slip in behind them, invisible. The timing would be tight, but Yang was sure she'd be able to pull it off somehow.

That had been days ago, now she was crouched behind the hedge that lined the wall of the Schnee family mansion. This was the south entrance to the grounds, the same one that the general used. Right on time, his car pulled up to the gate. With its thickened tires, bulletproof windows and armored body there wasn't any question as to who was inside. The driver's window rolled down as an extended scanner scanned the driver, a robot, before the scanner beeped. The gate opened, it moving sideways like a sliding door, despite the gate having what Yang had thought to be obvious hinges.

Now was the time to go, the car slowly pulling forward, Yang pressed the button on her wrist, feeling the suit vibrate a bit, she stepped forward hoping that Weiss's info was correct and that the security system wouldn't shoot her with tranq-shot the second she stepped inside. Thankfully for her, the suit worked just as Ciel said it would. Unfortunately, the gate had closed quicker than anticipated and her hair was caught in it.

Closing her eyes, she concentrated on controlling her anger. It was a gate, not some person touching her hair, there was no need for her to smash it into pieces. Despite that she could tell her eyes were red, so quickly she moved as for forward as she could, before grabbing the caught stands near the tip, giving them a sharp tug, and the offending strands pulled loose from the gate. She was free, but she had wasted time; the dust reserves weren't large, and though she had refills she had to become visible to replenish.

As it were, she hurried along the path through the grounds, using the technique that Ciel had taught her to reduce the sound of her footsteps. After a minute of tensely passing round after round of guards, she saw the General, in his crisp white uniform, being led inside surrounded by his guards. She was too far to even possibly make it to the door, but the front door wasn't her goal. She had to get to the northwest corner of the mansion, to a servant's entrance. As such, she turned left, edging along the outside of the mansion, when she was about halfway she heard a soft beeping from the headband, a warning that the dust was about to run out. She didn't have nearly enough time to get to the servants entrance, so when she saw an open window, she didn't think twice before jumping into it, not a second too soon, as the suit vibrated again, meaning she was once more visible.

Looking around, she saw she was in a pure white room, filled with rather bland paintings of various washed out colors. To her left she saw there was- a person, right there! All she could see was their shadow, and part of their leg as they were in an alcove, but it was enough to send he heart into panic. How had they not noticed her? With some fumbling Yang managed to pull out the spare cartridge, injecting the dust into the port on the shoulder. With another press, she disappeared once more, and not a second too soon, as she heard whoever was in the small alcove start moving, turning to leave. With no time to spare she hopped out the window and continued onward.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Weiss sat in her small room/workshop. In a few days, if everything went according to plan, shed be seeing someone who she hadn't seen in a very long time. Weiss just hoped that Yang wouldn't hate her. She had a lot she needed to rell her and she couldn't waste time fighting with her. Nervously, Weiss twisted a handful of her hair around, the slight pain helping her focus on the task at hand. All around were tools, seemingly thrown in anger. The workbench was covered with a tarp, the shape underneath unidentifiable. She stood up, carefully walking over to it, moving to pull it off, when her door beeped, before hissing open. With a small yelp, Weiss turned around, facing Ruby, who stood in the doorway looking at the mess.

"You should keep your quarters clean and organized. The family won't pay for any injury sustained by stepping on a tool not in the proper place." droned out Ruby, straightforward and blunt as always. "Father has requested that you attach this parachute to my back for an upcoming mission, and to wire it into my central mainframe using the access port in my arm."

Weiss took the parachute pack in her hands, before moving over to the workbench, gathering the tools she'd need. When she turned back around she saw Ruby already sitting on a stool by her workbench. As Weiss approached, Ruby reached up, unzipping her jumpsuit, letting it fall own to around her waist.

"The mission uniform will be altered to accommodate the pack. No need to worry about it being under clothes." she said, staring blankly hesitated, not having ever seen this much of Ruby before. She was beautiful, even with metallic limbs. As Weiss attached the parachute, she couldn't stop her eyes from running over Ruby's flawless body, nor could she resist the temptation to run her hands over Ruby's back under the pretense of "checking to make sure she hadn't messed anything up". Even with the metal plating, Weiss still thought Ruby's skin was so soft. Weiss had been so engrossed with actually _touching_ Ruby that she nearly fell to the floor when she spoke.

"Are you done yet?"

"Y-yes! Everything is fine!" Ruby nodded, before putting her suit back on, leaving the room.

For the next twenty minutes, Weiss felt very, very warm.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

The general stood across from Jacques in the atters office, looking down at the small sample of silvery dust on the desk. Next to it was a small cube attached to an aura conduit.

"This is what you wanted me to see? A small pile of dust and a cube?"

"Just wait, James, and see what the dust can do" so saying, Jacques sprinkled the dust over the cube, then pushed the conduit over to the General. "Go ahead, funnel some aura into the cube" The general did so, and to his surprise, the small cube vanished.

"Do you see now? With dust like this in our armory, there's no enemy that could ever stop 001"

James took his hand off the conduit, before straightening his uniform needlessly. "There are many applications to this other than your little pet project. Imagine an entire army with this, no one would ever see it coming until it was too late. This will revolutionize the stealth field"

Jacques sighed, sitting down at the desk, pouring him and the general a glass of whiskey. "James, you think to broadly. The more things we use this for the more likely it will get captured and used against us, and we both know the last thing either of us needs is an invisible assassin slitting out throats in the night"

The General just waved away the words, "enough about use, what about the supply? Is it secured, and does anyone outside of this room know about it?"

"I had men seize the supply this morning, and the only ones who know about it are you, me, 001, and Ciel Soleil, and her scientists. The lesser scientists were dealt with, and I made sure Ciel wont be talking anytime soon. I have my men making more as we speak"

The General relaxed "that's good. Speaking of which, where is 001? Seeing as it helped with this, I had expected it would be here for this meeting." Jacques seemed to become angry at his words. " _She_ is training at the moment. I'll remind you that _she_ isn't one of your mindless robots. She's my daughter and heiress, so don't refer to her as 'it' again"

"Right…"

The two men continued to talk, moving on from that topic to more mundane things, or at least that's what it sounded like to Yang. Yang had made it to Weiss, and they had been listening to the conversation through the ears of a server robot that was inside, who had it broadcasting to another one stationed in Weiss room. Weiss turned to face Yang, who was standing stiffly, hands clenched. "The 001 they were talking about, thats your sister. she's...not the same...she got attacked that part was true, but she didn't die, although she came close."

"Make her come here"

"W-what?"

"MAKE HERE COME HERE NOW!" Yang closed her eyes, breathing hard, before speaking again "I'm going to take her home. She doesn't belong here."

"Y-You can't do that yet! Her entire body, its, it hooked up to this remote, father could easily kill her with just a press of a button. We either have to reconfigure the program to make it useless or remove all the transceivers in her body, but...well i only know where a few are, and not the important ones…" Yang looked like she was about to explode.

"Six years. For six years I've thought that i'd never see my little sister again. And then you tell me that I have to wait even longer to bring her back home? Do you know what our father is like now? After losing two wives and his daughter? He never even got to say goodbye the last two times." Yang walked over, picking Weiss up by he collar and slamming her against the wall. "We _are_ going to figure this out now, because I am _not_ leaving this building without my sister."

Weiss gulped, struggling to get free "O-ok" she squeaked out. "Let's begin."

 **It's been too long, but recently i've been dealing with writer's block and an increase in college work as the semester draws closer to its end. Trust me, i'd love to get more done but it's hard to find time to write this when I'm up until 2 am writing essays. Things should get better soon though.**


	9. Fixed

Ruby opened her eyes. She had been sleeping, or rather, she had been not awake. She read many articles and blogs about what sleeping was like, and her own memory, with its sudden desire to apparently repair itself, gave hr vague impressions that what she did now wasn't sleeping, but rather shutting down. For she was always aware of her surroundings when she wasn't "On", aware of any presence, of the air temperature and quality, and many other things besides. That wasn't what her memories told her sleep was like. Her brain was changing and she wasn't sure whether she liked the changes she was experiencing, the random memories that popped into her mind, though names and faces still eluded her, the emotions that overtook her mind and body and made her act irrationally. It wouldn't be long now before someone noticed.

The thing that had awoken her was a small notification, showing up as a small "!" in the corner of her vision, along with a incessant beeping in her ears that only she could hear. Irritated, she accepted the notification. It was a maintenance request for her, or some weapons upgrade that would require her to bring her blueprints, the original copies so that nothing would be messed up. Odd that it specifically mentioned the original copies, but not out of the blue. Father himself sometimes referenced them when explaining certain aspects of her to others.

Traveling through the mansion she became aware of something she had never really payed attention to before. The android servants, the common pieces of machine, communicated, in some language of their own. She hadn't noticed before now but there was no reason that machines of their quality should ever be making as much noise as they did she also noticed that they avoided her, as if she were something contagious. Though she didn't understand their language, she could recognize perhaps the feeling behind it, and it wasn't positive toward her.

She got that a lot.

Most regular people looked at her with fascination, sure, but never like she was a person. It was the kind of fascination one might have for a large gemstone, or a satisfying explosion; something to be looked at but not interacted with. And beneath that fascination, was the fear, disgust, and disdain. She was an abomination, only classified as human by loopholes in the law. She never went out much anymore. She was too much of a robot for humans, and too much of a human for robots. She walked the line, never really fitting in with either.

It was a strange feeling.

She was lost in thought, her mechanics keeping her moving, keeping her focused on her task, speaking and moving for her while she ruminated. She had found out that she could do that; separating her mind from the machine and letting herself run on autopilot. It was never something she had done often until recently. She had never had a reason to before.

It was only when she reached her destination that she took control of herself once more, just in time to enter her security code into the maintenance room keypad, the code that could get her into every room but two: her Father's room and his office. She stepped in and only had a second to register the golden blur to her right, her regular eye, before she felt a zapping against her neck and a sting and she fell into the first state of true unconsciousness she had been in for a long time.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

"That actually worked…."

"You seem surprised"

Weiss stood over Ruby who lay on the floor of her room. After she had been deactivated Weiss had caught her, lowering her gently to the floor. Her weight in Weiss's arms felt oddly….comforting. Weiss gently brushed Ruby's hair out of her face. Sleeping, she looked too young, too innocent. The blueprints and schematics she had requested she get had rolled across the floor, rolled up in cardboard tubes.

"Yang, look for the one marked "security implants, and open it up" while Yang searchd, Weiss usd a grav-crane to lift ruby up onto her work table, face down. After she had, yang handed her the smallest of the tubes. "I said to open it…"

"It has some kind of lock on it, looks like voice lock." indeed when she looked she saw a small lock, a button and small voice receiver. Luckily she knew of a bug in most of her father's basic security programs, actually it was more than likely it was a backdoor put in by the programmer.

"Don't worry, there's a trick to these that I found a long time ago" she held down the button on the lock, and a led next to the receiver lit up green, breathing in, Weiss spoke "Snow Snow, Alpine Valley" the green light blinked three times, before the lock clicked open "I found those words written on a scrap of paper included with the notes on the security systems. It seems to be some kind of override or something."opening the tube she slid the schematic out, looking at it. It was a diagram of a basc body, with certain areas circled, small bits of text next to each. The locations of the security implants. It looked like there were five in all, but there'd be a small problem, only four were marked, one in each arm and leg, and a note on the bottom referencing 'Security Implant Alpha, location…' the location had been blacked out.

"We might have a problem here. There seem to be five implants, but only four are marked on here. And from what i'm reading, all five have to be deactivated within 120 seconds or they fry her systems."

"That...that's bad right?"

"Well since most of her major organs are now a art of those "systems", yes that'd be bad"

"Well where isn't there an implant at?"

"Most of her entire body"

"Where would you put it?"

The question surprised her. Sure her father had been training her most of hr life to think like him, until Ruby had completely taken over his concentration, but she had never really wanted to think like him, being like her father was the last thing she wanted.

"I'd put it on her spinal cord. It's a tricky place to operate on and if deactivated correctly can directly kill its host body." Weiss picked up her tools, carefully cutting the wrappings off Ruby's chest, careful to at the very least protect her modesty, and searched around her neck. Indeed she could feel it, a small irregular bump where one shouldn't be. She carefully put a pin there, before moving over the rest of her body, opening her mechanical limbs and finding the ther implants, marking them with little holographic flags.

Afterward she went to the small sink in the corner, starting to scrub down her hands using as hot of water and the best soap she had to get as clean as possible.

"What are you doing, shouldn't you be, you know, removing things?"

The one in her neck, unlike the ones in her limbs, is surrounded by skin, and muscle. Although I have the things to make the area as clean and mess free as possible, it's still technically surgery, and that means sterile environment. I'm going to need you to either stand way back or scrub up too." Yang hesitated before walking over to the sink, and Weiss spend a minute showing her the proper technique.

Finally ready, Weiss gathered the tools shed need, laser scalpel. And forceps, plus her technology tools, wire cutters, super magnifying glasses, and a few other laser tools. Before she started she injected the area with two compounds, one to slow blood flow, and another that would take effect after to speed recovery. Then she carefully started operating, hoping her hands wouldn't shake at all. After a few very tense minutes, tense for her as she hadn't ever done this on a living person before, she had exposed the metal plating, which she then cut a small hole into with a laser cutter. The metl was so pliable it was amazing that it was the strongest metal in the world. Yang hadn't been able to watch for the last minute or so but if she had sed have seen it, neatly attached to the spinal column, a small electronic device, smaller than the other four.

The deactivation would be trickiest on this one. The entire device wasn't overly complicated, a few wires and a transceiver to send and receive signals. The other four would be simple, just cut them off at the central area where the wires fed into the rest of the tech. But this one she'd have to be extremely careful or else she'd risk severing spinal nerves. Slowly, Weiss began her work

* * *

 _Where was she? Everything was black and dark. Who was she? She could see a light glimmering and growing brighter, color and form seeping around her. Everything seemed... hazy. Like she had poor vision. She wasn't aware of her body until suddenly she realized she was being held, rocking gently back and forth, a garment soft as silk pressing against her, a warmth flowing from it, and calming noise. A song. It had no discernable words, but upon opening them she saw that she could see better. Dazzling light, yellow, white, hints of blue, and reds. She was surrounded by a feeling of love. And she was happy._

 **Another chapter down enjoy some medical stuff and this nice ending part I put in last minute. Is it Vague enough for you all? :)**


	10. Rebooted (End of Part 1)

Blake shivered, wrapping her remaining real limb around her. The streets and alleys of Old Vale were always dark, full of lurking predators and dripping water. It had been weeks since she had awoken down here, and though Fixer had told her there was no way without knowing the right people, she had spent the entire time looking for a way out of here.

In that time she had had to fight off several attacks on her life. Luckily the charge gun was quite effective, even with the volt capacitor having been removed. She could fully regulate to any degree of shock she wanted. Still, even with the creeps, stalkers, and choppers, as they were called, Blake had to admit the place has a kind of….vibrancy to it. The people here had their own culture, unlike anything she had ever seen. They were loud, violent and chaotic, but she could see a sense of order in the chaos.

At first. she hadn't been able to figure it out. A person might walk by one person unharmed, but the next person would stab them in the arm, leading to a brawl that seemingly random people would join in on. Then she started noticing. Some of them had it on their clothing. Some had jewelry, some had it painted or tattooed on them. Insignias. Looking at the jacket Fixer had given her she saw one as well, a hexagon with an X in the center. There were other ones, more than she could name. Arriving back at Fixer's place after another fruitless attempt to find an exit along the border wall, she slipped through the door, noticing that Fixer's door and her own jacket had the same markings.

In the kitchen area, Fixer was heating some mash. Besides for the very very expensive black market sellers, the mash was really the only food they could get down here. It was some kind of tasteless white slop, Blake had been too afraid to ask, and Fixer wasn't offering to say either.

"Any luck there kitty?" Blake slammed her coat down on the stand just a bit harder than she meant. Besides her infuriating teasing about her search, the nickname reminded her of her brother. And also of…..Blake shook herself, going to sit at the small table, cluttered with junk, as usual, looked like an Atlesian android Fixer was 'repairing', it's valuable but noncritical, components stripped from it. She even saw that some of its platings had been added to her patchwork body. She tossed Blake a bowl of mash, her disregard for if she broke her things showing, still Blake easily caught it.

"You already know the answer to that. If I had any luck I wouldn't be here."

Fixer sat across from her, putting on a look of fake hurt. "You would just leave with no goodbye? After everything I've done?"

"Yes, I would." It may have seemed harsh, but Fixer only smiled, throwing back a can of cheap alcohol in one swig.

"Good. Down here, attachment is pointless." They were quiet for a moment, Fixer idly twirling a fusion cutter while her other hand hacked some systems, the android twitching occasionally as she cracked her way into every bit of its operating system. She noticed that Fixer had carved one of the sigils into the faceplate, a different one than her own, this one looking like a circle with a square of four dots inside it.

"What do all these symbols mean? I see them all over down here."

"What, the shadow markings? This is a chaotic place. The only semblance of order down here are the clans. There's oh...reckon seven or eight of them. You see the marks you know who is under whose protection. And who will leave a vibroblade between your ribs." she gestured to the marking on the Android "This here is part of a gift for the Dragons. Us, we are under the sign of Mr. X. They're the two biggest shadow bosses. If we can strike a deal with them, we be sittin pretty."

Blake looked out the window. Order from chaos. It was something she hadn't thought possible. But she supposed in some ways it happened all the time. But she had never thought it could happen without leaders. But the fact that a bunch of wild criminals had organized it, and that it _worked_ in a messed up way, gave her some ideas. What if she was….no...that would never work.

"Is everyone a part of one of the clans?"

"Oh dear no. That one place I told you about, the shadows, that is where the clanless flee to. The place is too dark for any sort of clan to want to bother with sending people in after those poor bastards. No one knows what they do in there, or how they even know what they are doin."

The gears in Blake's mind started turning. A place to dark for humans to see. Somewhere they could easily hide. In her time here she hadn't seen nearly any Faunus, but now she had a good idea where they had gone. With her time from the White Fang, her knowledge from Fixer...she could easily get them to follow her. She could have her own clan. The Shadow Clan. She knew her people. They were stronger. Better equipped to live in a place like this. They could Rise up and eventually, burst free from here, and spread chaos on the world that had thrown them aside like useless garbage. She felt her gaze harden, as she looked up at the roof of this place. She would rise from shadows as many time as necessary to achieve her dreams. And now, she knew how she could do it.

* * *

Yang still couldn't believe her eyes. Her baby sister. Right in front of her. After Weiss had oh so carefully cut the control module or whatever it was from her sister's neck, she had replaced the plating and sealed the wound, spraying it with some anti-scarring spray, though she doubted her father would ever see it with how her hair was, it never hurt to be cautious. Although Yang had seen her countless times, it had only been poor quality images from security cameras or street cams. Actually being this close to her. It was something she had always dreamed.

But she hadn't realized how messed up she had been. She knew that they had said she was in a Grimm attack...but she had always thought the metal was armor...not her actual limbs...she reached out, brushing the hair out of her face, looking at the mechanical plating that was there, seeing the dull red glow from her eye.

She had found her sister. Not just found her, she had started taking her back. But….was she really still her sister?

She had wanted to talk to Weiss about what Ruby was like, but after finishing up on Ruby she had gone and collapsed on her bed, saying she hadn't gotten enough sleep recently with all the planning. Didn't help Yang's nerves to her that Weiss had been operating while exhausted, but it was over, so no point berating her on it.

Her sister. Ruby. _Her_ sister. The thought continued to swirl in her mind, making her feel nervous, giddy, excited, and dreadful all at the same time. She remembered feeling this way before when she had heard she would be meeting her new sister for the first time. She had been almost four, Ruby having needed to remain in the hospital due to the poor circumstances of her birth. But when mom had walked through the door, with that smiling dark-haired baby in her arms Yang had felt like everything in the world would be just fine. She just hoped….

She was awake.

Yang had been so caught up in her thoughts that she hadn't realized Ruby's eyes were open, staring straight up, blank expression. "Ruby! You...you're awake!" No reaction. "Ruby…?"

* * *

Darkness. Her eyes were closed. She was asleep. No, she was...shut down, sleep had vanished a while ago. Suddenly it was like a switch had been flipped, she opened her eyes and...error. Security protocol offline. Rebooting system… Security program failed. Reset system without protocols? _Hmmmm...yes..that would be..acceptable…_ Booting system, SXS OS 5.8.14, Welcome, Please select a Name. _hmmm..a name...what was her name. Distantly she could hear a noise, and it caused a name to pop into her head. She thought it, and the name spelled itself out on the screen._ Is this correct? _Yes….yes this is correct, I can feel it._ Accepted. Welcome, Ruby. Initializing power, initializing servomechanisms, calibrating audiovisual systems, connecting to CCT System, booting up memory drives. Would you like to activate and calibrate weapons systems? _No...no I will do that later._ Okay, Ruby, I will set a reminder to do that later. Now connecting you to the audio-visual network. Have a great day.

 **This is the last chapter of Part 1 of Cyber Rose! *opens the champaign* anyways, from here, the story will be taking a turn in direction, hopefully fulfilling those who want action and romance, and I will have to think of a new naming convention for the chapters. See you soon once Part 2 comes out!**


	11. Order and Chaos (Start of Part 2)

**Welcome to the second part of Cyber Rose. The first part I never said, was called Origins. At least I don't think I said that. And this part, Part Two, is called Rising Tides. You might hopefully notice longer chapters, and a different kind of formatting. That is done on purpose. This part will focus much more heavily on Other parts of Atlas, as well as a huge part taking place in Old Vale, aka, The Underground. But don't fear, I'll still have plenty of Weiss Ruby and Yang, but not much will be from Their PoV, though you do get some to start because I'm nice. Hope you enjoy Cyber Rose: Rising Tides, Starting Now!**

Atlas. January 15th. Atlas Military HQ. General's Command Center

He took a deep breath.

Looking over the complex, at the hundreds of moving parts; conveyors, men, androids, cyborgs, mechs, trucks, hover trams, low flying airships; he found comfort in the chaos. Though it looked chaotic - and he referred to it as such - he knew it was all completely under control, and when he looked long enough, could see the order to it.

Order from Chaos. That was the ultimate goal of life.

And Atlas would make order a reality. Soon though, his attention was drawn back to behind him by a slight beeping from his desk, a call coming in on the private SDC line. He turned, not really taking in any of the office anymore, with it's sparse decor, function preferred over form, and pressed the ico on the holographic desktop, bringing up the call feature, usually accompanied by video of whoever was calling, but today it seemed Jacques was mobile, as there was only static, below which a program recorded the soundwaves for later encoding.

"James! I thought we agreed to keep our 'discovery' a _secret_ until such time as we were able to fully implement it into the tech? So what is this about you blathering on "advancements made into stealth and covert ops" that you are spilling to anyone with access to a TV?" the general sighed, running one hand through his hair.

"You may not realize being in charge of just a regular company, but I run a Military here. And if Atlas as a military power aren't constantly improving, then what faith will the public have in our ability to protect them? They need to know that they _are_ being protected, even if it might not seem like it."

Across the line he heard only silence from Jacques, and quietly in the background the sound of rushing water. He could almost see the man carefully stroking his mustache in thought.

"Don't let any more out," was the short reply before the line cut out. James sighed, shaking his head slowly. Jacques was a brilliant doctor, and mechanical genius, but when it came to people, he had no tact. Even after all these years, still about as warm as one of his androids. And speaking of androids...James pulled up the spec's again.

He was highly intrigued by these they were plans, schematics for a safe procedure that could reproduce CEO001 on a huge scale, without the brain damage, but with all the control.

Jacques wanted him to review the specifications and give him estimates on the cost of components, and to organize a team for selecting…"recruits" for the operations. Sighing, he sent the cost estimate analysis to his secretary an instead brought up the reports from his field agents. Most were boring to him, but one caught his eye; a sleeper agent in the swirling dark chaos of Old Vale, reports of increased faction movement between Dragons and Mr X clans, as well as increased reports of weapons production and distribution from Black Hand. Interesting.

He had the entirety of old Vale mapped, including the two small and well hidden entrance-exits. The one to the south was no problem, but the north one. If a force had found the exit, and swarmed out of it, they'd be right in the heart of New Vale, perhaps it would be best to destroy that exit after all.

The only problem was that was the larger of the two, and its location meant a potentially devastating collapse of the city above. Idly, he reached over, pressing a button on his desk, sending a message through his chain of command, and then he waited. Within a few minutes, the door to his command center opened, CEO001 itself walking through, cold and impassive as always. It stopped before him, saluting.

"At ease…." he flipped the holographic display showing the secret passage as well as the parts of New Vale around to face it. "Tell me. How would you seal off this lower tunnel without damaging the city above it?" It reached out, touching the display, and James could faintly see a blur of words and numbers, calculations, research and specifications flying by her eye as she reasoned out his request.

"The lower tunnel is old, made in the Pre-Expansion age, and isn't well maintained at all. The ground for 20 meters above is old concrete and packed dirt, after that, carbonsteel pillars hold up the base of New Vale. however these pillars vary in size along the route of the tunnel, since the previous elevation fluctuated, and New Vale is even. In these three spots," she pressed on three spots along the tunnel, the areas glowing in red, "the pillars are the tallest, as these are where the elevation was the lowest. If you place thermo-charges surrounded by nano-concrete packets and barrels of water, and detonate them in a time of low traffic in the area above, the explosion will simultaneously collapse the tunnels, and seal the rubble into three highly impenetrable walls, blocking the tunnel threefold while also causing no collapse to the city above."

James smiled inwardly, leaning back. Thermo-charges, nano-concrete and water. It was brilliant of course. The charges would cause the nano-concrete to mix with the water, and the heat afterward would cause the mixture to seal the rubble instantly. It wouldn't be as strong as carbonsteel, but it also would effectively seal those criminals from bursting out into New Vale with no warning. "Go. Assemble a team and move out within the hour. Move quickly, and silently." She nodded, saluting before turning to the door and starting to walk out. "And soldier?" she stopped, turning back to face him.

"Sir?"

"Although I'm sure I don't have to say this, any failure on the part of you or anyone with you will result in the person's termination. And if you do fail, or get caught, you are on your own. Atlas has no jurisdiction to be doing this. So try not to waste my men. Dismissed"

0-0-0-0

Atlas, January 15th. Atlas Military HQ. General's Command Center, Exterior.

Ruby shook slightly. Atlas was so cold. Though she only kind of felt it. Not only that, but General Ironwood was a frightening and intimidating presence to be in. Perhaps it was the fact that his entire right half was robotic and he made no effort to hide the fact, or the fact that he spoke so coldly and calmly. She had never seen anyone as controlled in any scenario as him. Not even when several giant Grimm had forced through the cold to attack the base had his tone so much as wavered. From what Weiss had told her, she used to be like that. But she couldn't imagine that.

Weiss…

Just thinking of her made the cold feeling seem to lessen. She wasn't sure why, but Weiss made her feel...feel...she wasn't sure. But she wished the fleeting emotions would stay. Though she felt, the feelings were still fleeting and stuttery like...like… _Like an engine in the cold?_ Yes, that was the right metaphor.

The OS in her head, System for Universal Metrics, Meaning and Extraneous Research, or S.U.M.M.E.R, was very helpful. She wasn't sure why she hadn't ever been active before, but now that she was, it was comforting to hear more than silence within her head. Perhaps she was simply crazy, and the voice was her own thoughts.

She had long forgotten what thoughts were like, the feeling of a head full of self was strange. All she ever had was a directive, the rest of her mind, a calm blank void. That void was starting to ripple though. To become something. She started, releasing she had been moving on autopilot again. She was in a large converted hangar. Originally used to store much larger airships, it now stored the much smaller fighter jets, and the rest was a combined makeshift bunkhouse and commissary for the fighter pilots. As she walked by one of the jets, she trailed her hand along it, getting a readout of its components and mechanics as they currently were. Her sight allowed her to see all 546800 parts, and knew exactly how they all worked with each other.

She also saw a problem.

She bought her hands together, causing a sharp clap cut straight through the Idle chatter, as every person turned to look at her.

"This Jet's propulsion regulator in the left engine is critically worn. If you so much as tapped the throttle this jet would explode. Fix it."

She continued on into the Bunk area as two engineers made their way up ladders and started quizzically opening up the engine. Minutes later, as she left the area with three soldiers in tow, two carrying equipment, the third a demolition expert, she saw the two engineers holding the brittle and corroded pulse regulator in amazed wonder.

She felt a small smile play on her lips, but stopped it quickly. If anyone suspected that she wasn't basically an organic android, they'd probably tear her apart to find out why. And then they'd find her missing implants. Climbing aboard a transport ship (that thankfully had no issues that would cause catastrophic mechanical failure), she was quickly taking off toward New Vale.

Old Vale. The Shadows. Edge. January 12th.

Blake breathed in deeply. Her faunus sense were practically overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle of the chaotic area's of Old Vale. but the Shadows were a welcome relief.

All around her, appearing as grayscale shapes, she could see the buildings and streets of the area. Though, even with her enhanced night vision, she could only see a little ways into this place. It was truly a dark void. The perfect place to hide.

Signs hung off the buildings, lay sprawled on the ground, littering the area. It was hard sometimes to remember that this had once been a busy city. She knelt down, brushing the trash off one of the signs nearest to her, reading it. "TU_S_N'_ _O_ _T_RE"

Some of the letters had faded completely or were simply too trashed to read. She wondered what this building might have been. Inside the shattered windows she could se many tipped over shelves, and a counter at the back, lost in gloom.

Blake edged forward, continuing deeper into the darkness. As she walked, she tried to imagine these cold barren streets being warm, full of laughing families and people just out enjoying their day.

Then she imagined Menagerie. She had been a fool to do so.

Menagerie was crowded, poor and boring. But it had been safe. She distantly remembered what safety felt like. She hadn't felt safe since…..she sighed. She regretted ever leaving her parents. Regretted hurting them like she had. Ever since that day she had ran away from Menagerie, her life had been one danger incident after the next. And speaking of danger...she had subconsciously been aware they were there from the start, but only just now actually noticed them. They were very quiet, so much so that ever her faunus hearing could only sometimes detect them, a slight shifting of rubble, a hushed exhale, cloth rubbing against stone. They were all around her. She stopped. Raising her hands, to show she was unarmed, and spoke quietly.

"Are you...the Faunus?" they became less suspicious, now very audible scurrying around her, though they still remained at the edges of her vision. They clearly knew she was a Faunus, or else she suspected they'd be much closer. Finally though, one crept into her range of vision, a small woman, dressed in rags, small round ears atop her head showing her mouse Faunus heritage. All over her skin were scars, though what gave them to her she couldn't tell.

Silently, the woman made quick, jerky movements to indicate for Blake to follow. So she did, along the cracked and broken streets, shells of past lives scattered around them.

As they walked, Blake could see others flickering in and out of her vision, Faunus of all kinds; mouse, cat, rabbit, ram, and others she couldn't tell at a glance. The walk seemed to take forever but eventually in the distance Blake could see...surely it had to be some kind of trick. Then again, no person had likely ever come down this far and lived to come back and tell of it. But there, in front of her, under dim flickering firelight that seemed like bright neon after the pure darkness, was what she assumed was the Faunus leader, and surrounding her was...fresh food. Huge piles of it. The smell, even down here and from this far away, was intoxicating, Blake could already feel her stomach practically straining to get at it. After so long with bland disgusting Mash, even pears, which she usually hated, seemed like ambrosia.

But before Blake could even get within reach of the delicious piles, the ones who had brought here here, surrounded her, stopping her from going any further, while the Faunus leader, who looked to be some kind of Tiger, hopped off her makeshift throne, prowling towards Blake.

The woman was unlike the others around her. Where they wore scraps and bore scars, she was decked out in quite well maintained clothing, robe like garments in a rich red that complemented her dark skin well. And instead of scars, she bore weapons, two curved black daggers, wickedly sharp. Blake wondered how many of the scars around her came from those daggers.

"You. Hate Humans?"

For what Blake had assumed to be a sort of harsh leader, the woman's voice was oddly soft, almost melodic. She also spoke in a quiet hushed tone, as if afraid to be heard. Or perhaps it was simply an effect of living surrounded by such oppressive darkness, only about a quarter mile from a chaotic mass of humans who would see them all dead or enslaved. Blake thought to herself. Did she hate humans? Certainly they had never helped her. They had taken her brother, her friends, they had beaten her kind, subjugated them. While she may not have hated them, she for sure didn't like them. Being sure to match her quiet tone, Blake gave her response: "Yes"

The Woman smiled, gesturing for Blake to give her hand, and Blake did so. Almost quick as lightning, the woman pulled her dagger, swiping it across Blake's palm, and then her own, before she grabbed Blake's bleeding hand. "Welcome home"


	12. escape and trap

Old Vale. The Shadows. Faunus Sanctuary. January 14th.

Blake sighed. She had been here - how long had it been now? - without any routine. With no changing light, it seemed like no time was passing. Time had, in fact, been passing, just not at the fastest of rates - this was only the second day here.

The cut on her hand had healed up, but already it had been joined by several others across her body. Sharp rubble, accidents in the dark, she was learning that this was a very scarring life. She was sitting atop a crumbling building. From the looks of it, once a dust shop, cases, and tubes long empty. Sometimes, if she concentrated hard enough, or climbed up high enough, she could hear the commotion from the rest of the underground. It made her feel oddly nostalgic, for some reason. She supposed, deep inside, the chaos there reminded her of her busy, crowded life on Menagerie. Though the most dangerous threat there was heat stress, with the occasional accident. It certainly wasn't a cesspool of crime and death like here. She had hoped that she could gather the faunus here, sent them into the main underground power facility, and destroy it, and then in the darkness, take it over, and with everyone under her rule she could burst forth into the upper world and descend upon the humans from the shadows of her- no their suffering...what was she thinking...these weren't her beliefs. As she stared into the darkness she could swear she could see him looking back. These were his ideas. Possibly mixed with Fixers...from the darkness next to her she heard a quiet breath. Blake looked but saw no one.

She had an idea who it was. When she had arrived she had walked around, looking at the condition of all the faunus. Most were scared, tired, unwilling to even move most of the time. But there were a few who were like her, like the leader. Ones who whispered in the shadows, eyes glowing with a different kind of hunger, hunger for change. And then there was one, she could always tell when they were looking at her. Her skin would tingle and she's whip around, seeing nothing but almost feeling the hidden anger. She had a pretty good idea of who it was. So she had come up here, knowing they would follow.

"You here to finish me off then, Ilia?" she looked off to the left, and with a slight shivering sound, Ilia changed from the same dark black around them to her "normal" skin color. "If you want to kill me you are going to have to try a bit harder this time" Blake faced Ilia, her arm buzzing with electricity. But to her surprise, Ilia had no weapon on her and was holding her hands up in a surrendering gesture.

"I'm not here to kill you, Blake...I just... need your help"

"What are you even doing down here?" Ilia looked way at the question. Blake was honestly confused as to how Ilia had found her. Blake had lost them in Vale and ended up down here, and she had asked Fixer several times, there had been no Faunus around when she had found her. And she had never seen any in the rest of the underground. Either Ilia had just gotten here or she hadn't been able to find her way to the city.

"Ater we failed to get you, the White Fang blamed me. They tried to kill me, so I came here"

Blake was surprised. "You knew about this place?" Ilia nodded.

"My parents told me about it, a long time ago, before they… I figured, if you weren't dead, you would end up here eventually. Blake, look you have to help me get out of here...I can't stand it..the dark, the quiet..it's driving me insane. I...I know you can help, you did manage to, you know escape _us_."

Blake sighed. She looked out toward the direction of the main underground hub, then back toward the leader's throne. She felt something being placed in her hand and looked down, it was an apple, Ilia had one too. They were pretty decent ones too, firm, unbruised. Usually, the foods they got, since it was teetering on the edge of rotten, was nearing mush. Still, tasted far better than anything she'd had recently, and she had smelled what seemed like cider brewing, so that would be good. She took a bite, the overwhelming sweetness almost making her eyes water.

"If it means you can get me more food like this, I'll gladly help" she could feel Ilia smiling behind her, that smile she knew meant dangerous things lay ahead.

"Well...about that…."

New Vale, Commerce Quarter, High Five Gym, January 14th

"Hyyyaaa"

Yang gave the punching bag another solid blow, sending it reeling back. Reaching out to steady it, she took a moment to catch her breath. She'd been here, at the gym, for 6 hours already, starting out with the bench press and deadlift, then coming over her to work on her fighting, alternating from a constant barrage of fast blows and slower more powerful ones. Getting back into her stance, she went back to punching imagining each ht was to the face of the stupid dumb asshole called Jacques Schnee. They had been so close. SO close. To getting Ruby out of there. Then she had gotten called to see him and 15 minutes later she was off to Atlas military HQ for an "extended mission" with the Atlas Military. She had had to sneak back out, without her sister, and she had been pissed ever since. She had hoped to tell Dad that Ruby was alive, and have her right there for him to see. They had wanted nothing more for the last 8 years. 8 years of just the two of them, never really speaking to each other. Her dad never really did much anymore. The money he had from his job plus the bonus they gave him after he left had only been enough, with Yang's careful spending, to last them 3 years. Yang had quit school after that, going around Vale, doing any small job she could to get money, until she had gotten picked up by a scouter at a Gym where she had been hiding in, avoiding the pouring rain. She had been an old Huntress, saw potential in Yang, took care of her, and trained her, told her about Boxing matches where she could win cash prizes. And she did, she won, made a name for herself, first in the Jr league, and had made a huge splash into the Teen League. When she had turned 18 there had been much anticipation to see her in the adult league, but her prowess in the ring had made her quite a few enemies, and she knew that the adult league would probably be the end of her, added to that was her discoveries with her Sister, so with much disappointment from the League officials (her fights always made them tons of money) she had withdrawn from the Boxing League. Instead, she just worked part-time here at the Gym, hoping to one day own it. She did occasional coaching for the Jr League, but she never taught them any of her really good tricks. Speaking of which…

She backed away, looking at the wall on the clock. 15:30. The kids would be here for their practice soon, and they'd be needing these punching bags. Though thankfully she wasn't coaching today. She wiped her face with her towel, going to the showers and changing back into her regular clothes, being extra careful with drying her hair. Even with all the warming and heating technology, January was still January. Putting on her brown leather jacket and orange scarf, she left the gym, giving some waves to the other patrons and staff, making sure they weren't put off by her earlier demeanor. Usually, she was far more social while working out, but she had been too angry to risk social interaction. Walking back through Vale, she wished that she had just taken Ruby and ran. Sometimes she wished she had never let Ruby go, and even that they had never met Weiss. Of course, recently, having heard what Weiss had gone through, she didn't feel as bad, but the anger was still there. Her old trainer had said her anger was her greatest weapon and biggest weakness since when she was angry she hit harder and felt less. But she could only sustain that anger so long and it made her tired in a fight, and sloppy too. She had lost many fights to that rage until she had learned to temper it. Turning several street corners, she finished the rest of her walk just thinking about Ruby.

Entering the apartment building, which she had bought a year ago, but hadn't really started using until recently, she climbed up to her door, going in, throwing aside her workout bag and undressing once more, going to take another shower. The gym did have nice showers, but she liked long showers, with hot water, and her own shampoo. Getting out she went and collapsed on the bed, sighing, her muscles relaxing. She felt drained. It wasn't the typical tiredness from after a workout, it was deeper, emotional and mental. She looked over at her phone. She knew she could call Ruby, she had made sure that he had some way to get proof if she needed, but she didn't know when she'd be alone and able to talk, so she just sighed. She closed her eyes, just wanting to rest for a moment…

Yang woke up in the early morning greyness, not exactly sure why she had woken. She was confused and groggy, apparently having slept in the apartment overnight without expecting it. It was quiet, strangely so, and then she heard it again, a faint boom, and then a rumble. It happened once more before the morning settled down again. She grabbed her Phone, opening up to a news site, waiting for some kind of report, but there was nothing about any kind of demolition. Looking back at her contacts, she threw caution to the wind, pressing the one for Ruby. the line rang for almost half a minute before the line connected.

"Ruby?" she heard coughing from the other side, and a sound like falling rocks.

"Hello, yes, this is...yes..." her voice was bland and unchanging, like she used when there were other people nearby that she couldn't trust, so Yang guessed she must have been around others "Please hold while I get to a secure area." shuffling and scraping followed for a few minutes before she spoke again, this time her voice showing some slight emotion.

"You heard the explosions then I guess?"

"Yeah I did- wait, that was you? What the hell is going on?" more coughing

"There was an...accident on a mission. I might be in Vale longer than expected...look I gotta go...General Ironwood is calling" and then she was gone.

Under New Vale, An Hour Ago

Ruby took one last look around, checking that no one was around to see them, before dropping down into the small opening, looking like any other maintenance hatch. But anyone who would take a second look would notice that there shouldn't have been a hatch here, as there were ones only about 12 feet to either side, and hatches were supposed to be placed in standard 25 feet intervals. Dropping down into the darkness, it was only a short drop, 6 feet down, then she activated night vision, hearing low whines as the rest of the squad did the same before they slowly set off down the pipe which slanted at a gentle 10 degrees. Going slowly and carefully, Ruby took the point, running her hand along the walls, occasionally stopping to X-ray the surrounding rock and metal. The tunnel had seemed pretty small on paper, or, rather, hologram, but it was actually several miles. Progress was slow, what with her scanning every area, confirming the data they had on the area's composition.

Almost 45 minutes had passed before they reached the spot, and the demomen started setting up the charges at her discretion, using her arm blade to gouge the walls where the packs needed to be placed. She stood further down from them as they worked, setting up the wires and the receivers, which would go off when she sent the signal, but as she stood there she heard something. Even with her enhanced senses, it was just barely in her range. Tuning out the noise behind her she moved closer toward it, hearing a shuffling sound. When she switched to thermal and zoomed in her vision, she almost jumped.

"Finish those charges now. There are rogues incoming at half-mile" she gave a short order into her comms, receiving affirmatives in response, she raised her hand, loading a small flare into her launcher and sent it flying down the tunnel as a warning shot. For a second she heard nothing but the sputtering of the flare, before even that went quiet, and then the sound of running, and growling. "Changes are live and hot let's go and evac."

Ruby looked at her sensors. 6 hostiles, and she was the only one armed for this kind of combat. "Fall back. That is an order. Fall back, and return to base, I will return later." there was silence for a moment on the line before she got the affirmative. Then she switched her arm to gun mode, loading in stun rounds. Aiming down the tunnel, she shot high, aiming over the heads, until she knew that her team was clear. Bringing up the map of Old Vale, she memorized it, then blew the charges.


End file.
